By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph city officials have no comment on a lawsuit filed against the city by Sandra Hemme, recently released from prison after being incarcerated for 43 years for a murder the courts found she didn’t commit.
Hemme’s attorney, Justin Hill with the Chicago law firm Loevy and Loevy, says the lawsuit names the city and several individuals employed by the St. Joseph Police Department at the time of the 1980 case.
“This lawsuit seeks compensation for police taking advantage of Sandy Hemme who was an extremely vulnerable 20-year-old woman who had significant psychiatric impairments in 1980 and framing her for a murder that she did not commit,” Hill tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Hill claims St. Joseph police coerced a confession from Hemme to protect one of their own. The lawsuit states all the evidence in the murder of St. Joseph librarian Patricia Jeschke in November of 1980 pointed to Officer Michael Holman.
Livington County Circuit Judge, Ryan Horsman, found Hemme innocent and ordered her release from the Chillicothe women’s prison. In his ruling, Horsman called Hemme “the victim of a manifest injustice.”
The lawsuit is very critical of the St. Joseph Police Department at the time of the Jeschke case. It claims former Police Chief, Bob Hayes, fostered a culture of impunity with the police department. Hayes is dead as are nearly all the individuals named in the lawsuit.
Hill claims the department went to extraordinary lengths to avoid embarrassment.
“And so, they wanted to avoid that news story and chose to pen it on Sandy Hemme,” according to Hill.
Hill adds it wasn’t the first time.
“There’s also another young man named Melvin Lee Reynolds who is similarly in a tough place in life and they framed him for the murder of a young man named Eric Christgen around the same time.”
Reynolds was released from prison after the courts found he had been falsely convicted in the murder of Christgen, four years old at the time of his death. Charles Hatcher would later be convicted in the death of Christgen and 11-year-old Michelle Steele.
The lawsuit asks for a jury trial. It doesn’t request specific compensation.
Hill says it is difficult to place a price tag on losing 43 years of your life.
“Sandy lost almost all of her adult life and putting a number on that is going to be a significant challenge for the jury,” Hill says. “But we’re going to put it to them.”
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ